


the line where the sky meets the sea

by holograms



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward Conversations, Bathtubs, M/M, the sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:44:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: Benny pulls Usnavi from the Hudson River.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [videogamedoc87](https://archiveofourown.org/users/videogamedoc87/gifts).



> I really enjoyed writing this, and I was even happier to write for you. HAPPY YULETIDE!!!
> 
> Title from Moana.
> 
> And thank you to bluecarrot for reading this, and helping me make it better.

Benny has seen a lot by the riverside — crushed beer cans, a brand new bicycle without tires, his own discarded dreams. Brought in by the ebb, but there’s no flow to take it out. Stuck.

There’s nothing that could wash up that would surprise him.

He stands corrected on an unusually humid Thursday morning on the eve of summer.

At first, Benny thinks the person in the water is _dead_ which, well, that wouldn’t be a surprise either, but then there’s a splash and a frantic waving of limbs and in an instant Benny drops his five-dollar breakfast burrito to the ground, leans over the the rail, reaches out and yells, “Grab my hand!” He doesn’t even think about it. The guy — Benny can see him now, only a few feet away, eyes dark and wide and desperate — fights the choppy current, gets pushed under once, but he rises and extends his arm out of the water and they _almost_ touch, but the water is rough and it pushes him under again.

Benny is ready to jump in after him but then a miracle happens — the guy surfaces and then he’s got his hand tight on Benny’s arm and Benny won’t let go. Benny promises him this, he says, “I’ve got you,” and he hooks his foot in the rung of the rail and tugs with all his strength, but it’s like the water doesn’t want to let the guy go.

“ _Please!”_ the guy yells, and Benny swears he can see the difference between river water and tears on his face, and he can’t let him drown—

—and with one last effort he hauls this stranger from the water.

The guy collapses on the ground in a wet heap, coughs up water, but he seems alright. Now that the adrenaline is fading, Benny realizes that the guy is buck-naked.

Well, then.

Benny looks around the pier to see if anyone else is seeing this. It’s too early for many people. Way too early for tourists. Therefore, the few people scattered around them just kind of glaze over the scene. Assholes.

“You okay?” Benny asks the guy, and he takes off his jacket and offers it to him. Benny diverts his eyes and tries not to look, but, he just saved him from the water, this weirdo, and he can’t help but stare. Thin, gangly, but somehow also slightly muscular; short, inky black hair; golden-tan skin. Enchanting.

The guy curls into himself. Thankfully, covering his most sensitive bits.

“You saved me,” he says, kind of stilted. He looks up at Benny through his eyelashes. They are wet, flecks of water dripping down onto his cheeks. “I am indebted to you.”

“Just cover yourself up. That would be compensation enough.” Benny laughs, nervous. Holds out his jacket. “I’m for real, though. You don’t want to get arrested for public indecency.”

Benny nods down at the guy, who looks down at his lap and lets out an, “Oh,” like he just realized his junk is hanging out for all to see.

Slowly, the guy stands on shaking legs. Benny is afraid he’ll fall, so he reaches out for him, but the guy waves his touch away, steadies himself on his own. He doesn’t seem to have any modesty at all — Benny is embarrassed enough for him.

“Here.” _Please take the damned jacket that I’ll have to get saltwater dry-cleaned out._

Thankfully, the guy takes the jacket from Benny. He inspects it as though he isn’t sure what to do with it. Benny motions around his waist. The guy shrugs, wraps it around himself, tying it off with the sleeves at his right hip. He’s so scrawny that it goes completely around his body, and down past his knees. He holds out arms out, the universal sign asking, _how do I look?_

He looks ridiculous.

“Good enough.” Benny runs a hand over his head, rubbing his fuzz of hair. “Um, so where are your clothes? Did you go for a swim and get lost, or…?”

After a long moment, the guy says, “I guess you can say that. I was swimming. In the water.” A pause. “Now, I’m not in the water.”

He looks out to the river when he says it. Wistful, almost.

“…Okay.” Benny shoves his hands into his pockets. He concludes that the guy from the river is odd, but harmless. Something makes Benny want to help him.

“Listen,” he says. “I kind of need my jacket back for work. I have some workout clothes in the trunk of my car that you can have. I can’t guarantee they’ll smell good but they’re more comfortable and you know…pants.”

The guy stares.

“We have to go get them in my car.” Benny gestures around. “Which is not here. Do you understand me?”

The guy nods, and gives Benny a smile. He’s got nice white teeth, and the skin around his eyes crinkle. It’s infectious, and Benny smiles too.

“C’mon, little homie.” Benny starts to walk in the direction of his car, stopping when he notices that the skinny-dipper doesn’t immediately follow. “Are you coming?” he asks, “Or were you going to go for another swim?”

The guy shakes his head, says, “With you,” but he doesn’t make an effort to move. He’s appears contemplative, eyebrows knitted together into harsh slants and he bites his lip.

“Well?” Benny holds out his hand. “What are you waiting for?”

The strange, _fascinating_ , man with his jacket tied around his waist lifts a foot, hesitates, and takes a step.

He stumbles.

Benny is there to catch him. Lunges forward and catches him before he hits the ground, wraps his arms around the guy’s middle to support him, and the guy has his hands resting on Benny’s chest and they’re both breathing hard — Benny imagines that they look like a goddamned cover of a romance novel.

“You saved me again,” the guy says, and he says it like he’s _amazed._

Benny laughs, lightly. “You seem to need a lot of saving,” he says, and slips an arm around his shoulders and steers him so he won’t get into any more trouble.

Ten minutes later, the guy drops the five-dollar breakfast burrito Benny had bought him. Benny sighs, and gives him half of the one he bought as a replacement for himself.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Benny asks, as he watches the guy scarf down the food.

“Usnavi.”

 

 

 

“My parents got it off the side of the boat,” Usnavi explains. “But it really said _U.S. Navy._ ”

At first the guy — Usnavi — didn’t say much but now he won’t _shut up_. Just. Talking. _Thanks for the food, I didn’t realize how hungry I was. It’s funny how that happens, that you don’t know until you do. But how can you know anything until you do? Wow, this sidewalk is hot! Ha, I should have known that…_

…and it went on and on.

For a moment, Benny thinks that maybe he should have left Usnavi in the water. But then he realizes that he mostly regrets buying him coffee.

“So, Benny of Washington Heights, what did your parents name you after?” Usnavi asks.

“It’s just _Benny_ , _”_ Benny ( _just_ Benny) says, frustrated. He’s trying to be nice, but it’s difficult. “And I don’t know — I think I had a great uncle named Bernard, but that’s not my name. I don’t have an interesting story about me.”

“Sure you do.”

“No, I don’t. Trust me.” Benny points across the lot before Usnavi can ask a follow-up question. “There’s my car.”

Usnavi runs toward it, bare feet slapping the pavement, jacket skirt blowing in the wind.

“This isn’t _your_ car,” Usnavi says as Benny digs in his bag in the trunk, trying to find something that isn’t too dirty. “It’s a _cab._ I know. I’ve seen them.”

Benny slams the trunk shut, startling Usnavi from his lean against the side.

“Yes, but I drive it,” Benny explains. “Like how I woke up and drove a customer all the way down here before the crack of dawn. It’s mine.” He spends all day in it, gets it washed, tinkers under the hood. It better damn well be _his._

“Okay, it’s yours.” Usnavi blushes, looks downcast. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I—”

“No need to apologize,” Benny interrupts, because he senses that’s the precursor for Usnavi to start rambling again, but mostly because Usnavi looks so hurt that he might’ve upset Benny.

Benny shoves the clothes at Usnavi. “Here.”

Usnavi lets out an _oof,_ looks down at the bundle in his hands. “I will accept them,” Usnavi says. Bows his head. “A gift from my savior.”

“ _Stop_ that.” Benny can’t figure out if Usnavi is for real or not. He’s got an awkward humor to him, but some of the things he says… “Please change.”

“Okie dokie,” Usnavi says, and then drops trou — just pushes the jacket off his waist and it falls to the ground and he stands there, leisurely nude.

Usnavi can’t be real.

“Usnavi!” Benny shouts — and the name is still unfamiliar, each syllable accented on his tongue. He crowds around Usnavi, trying to give him some privacy, but Usnavi rolls his eyes.

“Everyone has these parts,” Usnavi says as he steps into the sweatpants, pulls them up. They hang on his hips. “You’re a man. Don’t you have a penis?”

“Oh my God, you can’t ask people that.” Benny rubs his face in his hands. He does not look at the outline of Usnavi’s dick through the sweats. “Not every guy has a dick, you know.”

Usnavi tilts his head, then nods. “But you have one, I can see—”

“Okay!”

Usnavi’s smirk disappears behind the shirt going over his head.

It serves him right when he gets his hand stuck in the sleeve. Benny watches Usnavi struggle for a few seconds, him fighting the shirt and start to panic when he can’t get his arm through, but then Benny takes pity on him and helps.

“Thank you,” Usnavi says when his shirt is righted. “Again. This is three times, now.”

Liberating his hand from the confines of his sleeve is not equitable to pulling him out of the water, but still. He has to stop this right now.

“I saw you and I had to save you,” Benny says. “I did what anyone would do.”

As he says it, he knows it’s a lie. A black dude yanking another guy out of the Hudson — most people would think it’s better to not to get involved.

Usnavi blinks. “The other people did not help,” he points out.

“Well, you know how people are,” Benny says, and Usnavi looks at him like he doesn’t understand. So he explains more. “You know — not wanting to get too involved.”

Usnavi furrows his brows together. “I know there are bad people, and there are good people,” and he says it like capital B _bad_ and capital G _good._ “But I did not think that it would be so divided.”

“Yeah, well.”

It isn’t until later that he realizes that Usnavi thinks of him as _Good._

 

 

 

Benny had asked, _Where are headed? I’ll take you, no charge,_ and Usnavi had said, _I don’t know where I’m supposed to be_ , and Benny didn’t want to ask what that meant, so he lets Usnavi stay in the passenger seat as he drives through the city.

It’s worth it to see Usnavi’s reaction to — everything. He sits with feet in the seat (he’s barefoot, Benny didn’t have any spare shoes with him and Usanvi had said _that’s fine_ ) and cranes his head to see the tops of skyscrapers, lets out an _oooh_ at the marquees, looks at everyone going by quick quick quick. Hands pressed against the window, taking everything in. Even when they get stuck on traffic going north, he thinks it’s great so he has more time to study the surroundings.

Usnavi snaps out of his wonderment when a bicyclist skids by, nearly crashing into the front of the car.

“Oh!” Usnavi shouts, and grabs Benny’s arm. His brows are raised high on his forehead, like he’s questioning how Benny didn’t even flinch.

Benny forces down laughter. “You get used to it.”

Usnavi’s vice-tight grip falls from him, and goes back to looking out the window. “I don’t know how you’d get used to any of this.”

Benny shrugs, but then realizes that it goes unseen. “So you’re really not from around here, huh?”

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

“Uh. An island. Lots of water.” Usnavi looks over his shoulder and waves his hand. “Dominican Republic.”

They inch forward three feet, stop again.

“Don’t tell me you swam here from there,” Benny says.

“I didn’t swim here from there.”

Another two feet.

“Why’d you come here?” They’re stuck here — Benny figures they might as well make conversation.

Usnavi gestures out the window. “It’s New York. _Duh._ ”

“And?”

Usnavi turns to Benny, and there’s a hint of sadness in those wide, soulful eyes. The first Benny has seen.

“If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?” Usnavi asks, quiet.

Benny’s hands tighten on the wheel. Blows his horn at pedestrians who stopped in the middle of the street to text.

“I never said I didn’t like it here,” Benny says. Although, right now, in rush hour traffic with a chatty guy in his cab, he kind of hates it. Because it’s happened before, and will happen again, and again—

—and nothing seems special when it’s all you’ve known.

“I just don’t like what I’m doing,” Benny says, and then winces — he doesn’t really know why he’s telling this to someone he just met.

“Then what _would_ you do if you could?”

Benny takes a sharp left under a just-turned-red light, startling Usnavi into clutching the door.

“I’d go to business school.” Benny has had this thought — learn how things work, then make his own business, and then he would control his own direction in life instead of being impeded by others.

Usnavi scoffs. “Sounds thrilling.”

Says the guy whose thrill is going skinny-dipping in the morning.

“Did you not like where you lived?” Benny asks, turning the question on Usnavi. “Is that why you left?”

Something unreadable flickers over Usnavi’s expression.

“No,” Usnavi stammers. “I just— I think, I wanted to see if I could. I felt somewhere else calling to me, you know?”

Benny doesn’t answer, and for once, Usnavi doesn’t talk.

Usnavi presses his face against the window, gazing at Central Park. Benny thinks about telling him how many people are killed there yearly, but he hates to ruin the illusion.

“You’re smudging my window.”

 

 

 

Usnavi doesn’t have anything — Benny yanked him from the water with only his luck. He doesn’t give the indication that he’s missing anything, and he seems to be content. But Benny can’t leave him on the side of the road — the guy is clumsy and he has no shoes, what if he went into the river again or talked to someone not so friendly or—

So Benny takes Usnavi home. Sure, Usnavi is practically a stranger and there’s the possibility that he could kill Benny in his sleep — he’s got to be a little crazy to go for a dive in the Hudson — but somehow Benny already knows that Usnavi could never hurt a soul.

Benny drops his car off at the company and they walk the few blocks to his apartment. Usnavi manages to fall up the stairs and stub his toe, but they make it.

“Sorry, it’s going to be cramped quarters,” Benny says as he shows Usnavi his place. But as with anything, Usnavi takes it in stride. Acts like it’s the penthouse at the Majestic. Benny wonders what it’s like to be that optimistic. He probably would be a lot happier, if he were. Accept and be thankful of what he has.

Like: at least he owns a pair of shoes.

Benny offers for Usnavi to take a shower, “To wash the off the river gunk and the scent of my gym clothes.”

From the window, where he is admiring the view of the GWB, Usnavi says, “Your scent is pleasing.”

“That? Is one of those weird things I was talking about,” Benny says, but laughs, despite himself.

And then Usnavi laughs, and — it’s one of the sweetest things Benny’s ever heard.

He thinks that charming, cute laugh while Usnavi leaves the room to clean himself from his day. Benny thinks of that lopsided grin and that rapid-fire speech and awkward _everything_ , and he thinks of how you most often find something when you aren’t looking for it.

Damn it all.

 

 

 

Benny is taking a pizza out of the freezer when Usnavi walks into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his waist, and then Benny realizes, _oh right_ , the guy literally owns no clothes.

So he gives Usnavi more.

“Tomorrow, I’ll get you something that fits,” Benny says. The new set is just as big on Usnavi as the other — another pair of sweatpants, and an old Yankees shirt, the dark blue faded from wear and wash.

Usnavi runs his hand over the logo on the chest. “This is important to you.”

“Of course.” Benny crosses his arms. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been to a game.”

Usnavi sighs, says, “I’ve never been much of anywhere, outside of where I lived.”

Benny knows how that feels.

 

 

 

After a belly full of pizza and conversation with Usnavi (or more like, Usnavi talks and Benny listens), Benny calls it a day. He had been up since four in the morning, and it’s been an eventful day, to say the least.

Usnavi hovers next to him as Benny makes up the couch with a set of spare bed sheets. Fluffs a pillow, pulls the blanket aside. The couch is a little too small for Benny to be comfortable, but Usnavi is petite enough that he should be fine.

“Thank you, Benny of Washington Heights,” Usnavi mumbles, with the blanket pulled up to his chin. He yawns, and then looks up at Benny with heavy-lidded eyes. “You won’t leave me?”

Benny thinks of telling Usnavi that he is the one fearing that he’ll go away — escaping, back to the water.

“I’ll be only a room away.” Benny resists the urge to run his hand through Usnavi’s dark shock of hair. “Sleep well, Usnavi of the sea.”

 

 

 

_Benny promises, “I’ll save you,” as he reaches out for Usnavi. Usnavi thrashes in the water, and he’s crying, but he reaches for Benny too and they almost touch, the tips of their fingers brushing and Usnavi sobs and Benny knows he can’t save him. He thinks of jumping into the water with Usnavi, drowning with him, water filling his lungs, and Usnavi cries—_

Benny wakes, and he thinks he’s still in the dream because he hears a soft muffled sob but as his mind clears he realizes he’s in his bedroom and not in the water, so.

He debates whether to let Usnavi be, and he turns over and tries to force himself back to sleep, but—

“Hey, little homie,” Benny says — he goes to Usnavi, because he can’t leave him, he’s compelled towards him. A small tug in his chest, somewhere tucked under his ribs. “What’s wrong?”

The streetlights illuminate the room just enough to see — Usnavi sitting with his knees tucked up and his arms around his legs, quickly wiping his face but he can’t hide that he’d been crying.

“Nothing,” Usnavi says, but his voice is squeaky and it takes only Benny sitting next to him and laying a hand on his shoulder for the tears to return.

“I thought it’d be different,” Usnavi admits, it all spilling out as he clings to Benny. “It felt so _right_ to leave, I had to go where I wasn’t suffocated with the knowledge that I would never have anything else. I deserve it — don’t I? My parents died and now they’re just a memory…then my—what do you call—? My _Abuela_ Claudia raised me but she wasn’t my bloodline, not really, but she looked after me and taught me everything I know. Encouraged me. She used to tell me, _you should leave, like Nina and Vanessa. See what’s out there._ Sometimes, I used to pretend that my parents went away, too. I know they weren’t, but. I couldn’t pretend that when my Abuela died, too. But it made me leave. It was my chance to look for what I wanted.”

Benny doesn’t realize that he had been rubbing small circles on Usnavi’s back until Usnavi stops talking and lays his head on Benny’s shoulder.

Benny clears his throat, asks, “Did you find what you wanted?”

Usnavi sniffs; Benny figures that he’s probably getting his shirt snotty and tear-stained, but he doesn’t care.

Pulling back, Usnavi faces him, without reserve.

“I think so,” Usnavi says, and he’s got those sad eyes that are so dark that it makes Benny think of the vast depth of the ocean, and he leans in and puts his mouth on Benny’s—

—gentle at first, like an experiment, but then Benny sighs into it and holds Usnavi around his waist and then Usnavi opens his mouth and _kisses_ , desperate, hungry, and it’s like he’s touch-starved with how he demands more of Benny and Benny lets him because he _wants_ too, something he never knew he was waiting for.

 

 

 

Benny wakes up, half falling off the couch with Usnavi on top of him.

 

 

 

Since it’s where Usnavi was seeking, he doesn’t leave. Benny buys him clothes; comfy button-down shirts, baggy jeans, newsboy cap, _shoes._ He rides around the city with Benny while Benny works, sitting shotgun in the passenger seat. It gives Benny a new appreciation for what he’s grown used to — remembering that this is where Usnavi’s heart has led him.

( _To him_ , Benny wants to think, but it’s too soon for that.)

Benny tells Usnavi about the places they pass — _you’ve got to try their Cuban-Chinese food, it’s the best; I got lost in that museum when I was on a fieldtrip in sixth grade; that’s where I bought that book you were asking about._ Usnavi starts to fit in, as best he can, anyway. He listens to rap on the radio, picks up how to rhyme. He turns around and excitedly talks to the passengers, has conversations in English, Spanish, German, and surprisingly on one occasion, Latin.

Even though Benny bought Usnavi a pair of sneakers, Usnavi still goes barefoot in the car.   He wiggles his toes when he sees Benny looking.

He seems happy.

 

 

 

But at night, Usnavi crawls into bed with him, says, “I’m so cold. Please, Benny.” Begs. “I _want_ you—”

And Benny wants him too, pure desire. And he wants to give to Usnavi, _anything_ , to make him happy.

Usnavi keens as Benny undresses him, and it’s kind of difficult because Usnavi kisses him everywhere, licks his skin and hums happily. With interest, Benny licks Usnavi, right along the collarbone. He tastes like saltwater. Wet with sweat already, Usnavi gets so worked up. He’s so reactive to everything, _every thing_ — he writhes in the bed and tugs at his own hair as Benny runs his hands down Usnavi’s sides. Usnavi is so thin that Benny can count every one of his ribs, and he does, counts them with sweet kisses pressed against his golden skin.

“Please,” Usnavi begs.

He’s lovely and uncut, and even better in Benny’s mouth. He licks up Usnavi’s length, sucks at the head and runs his tongue under the foreskin and Usnavi gasps for air like a dying man. Usnavi says it, says, “I’m going to die,” frazzled, and Benny has to pull off for a moment to chuckle, but Usnavi thrusts his hips up and goes, “Please, don’t stop,” so Benny takes his cock back in his mouth, looks up the line of lithe Usnavi’s body to see how gorgeous he is while he’s being taken apart.

Usnavi sobs when he comes. Benny swallows it all down, and lies next to Usnavi, wipes away his tears and asks if he’s okay.

“I’ve never been better,” Usnavi says, and he kisses the taste of himself out of Benny’s mouth and moans filthily, and Benny can’t help but grind against Usnavi’s hip.

“I want _you_ ,” Usnavi says when he’s had enough; or hasn’t had enough. “I need you with me,” and he turns over and _oh—_

Usnavi keeps begging as Benny opens him up, him spreading his legs and looking over his shoulder, eyes flashing almost dangerously. Benny promises him _soon,_ curls his fingers inside just to see Usnavi shudder and whine, “Don’t tease me, Benny.” But Benny does, just a little more, kissing Usnavi at the base of his spine, then scrapes his teeth in the same spot and _fuck_ , Benny can’t resist anymore.

So, he inches into Usnavi slow, holding Usnavi’s hips with one hand because Usnavi keeps trying to push back onto him — he’s a greedy little thing. Instead, Usnavi grips the sheets and arches his back and lets out short _ahs_ when Benny thrusts slow, stretching him open.

“Breathe,” Benny murmurs when he realizes Usnavi isn’t. Usnavi takes in a sharp inhale, forces it out with a whine when Benny nips his shoulder. Usnavi relaxes, him letting out addicting noises as Benny fucks his tight tight ass that’s around him.

Benny curls against Usnavi, pressing his front to his back as he moves in Usnavi slow. He wants to feel as much of Usnavi’s skin against his as he can — he wants him, _needs_ him — and he knows Usnavi does too. Whines when he wants more, he’s insatiable, and he pushes his ass up and Benny slides in a fraction further. For a moment Benny thinks maybe he hurt Usnavi because Usnavi shouts, but when Benny goes to pull out Usnavi reaches back and breathes, “ _No,_ ” and he clenches down on the cock inside him and filling him up, and he works himself on it and moans, and well.

Benny can’t say no to him.

 

 

 

At some point — Benny doesn’t know when — he stops worrying about Usnavi leaving. Usnavi acquires things, has a _place_ that he makes with Benny. At the end of the day, Usnavi tells Benny, _let’s go home._

Benny thinks that he could love Usnavi.

 

 

 

Benny wakes up one night, tangled in the sheets, alone.

Knocks on the single bathroom in the apartment and mumbles, “Hey, ‘Navi. Get out. I’ve got to piss.”

“Um,” comes Usnavi’s voice through the door.

He hears water splash. “Are you taking a bath?”

“Maybe?” says Usnavi, his voice going all squeaky like it does when he’s flustered. “Can’t you hold it?”

“No.” Benny rests his head against the door. Why his boyfriend decided two in the morning was a good time for a bath — who knows. It’s another one of his peculiarities. “I’m going to come in, you can turn away.”

“But the door is locked—!”

Benny jams the knob up and twists, and the door unlocks with a _pop._ The lock has never worked — an amenity that came with the apartment, no charge.

“Benny!” Usnavi yells, and he thrashes in the tub and nearly pulls the shower curtain down — Benny doesn’t know why he bothers, as he’s never had a shred of modesty.

The light is dimmed but Benny’s eyes still sting from it attacking his pupils, but he focuses as he pees, then flushes. It’s only when he’s washing his hands that he is awake enough to look over at Usnavi in the tub.

Benny blinks, rubs his eyes, looks again. It still doesn’t make any sense. Is he dreaming? He pinches himself. Nope. He turns on the light fully, and well.

“I told you not to come in,” Usnavi says from the bathtub half-submerged underwater, with his tail curled around him.

 

 

 

Tail.

Big, longer than Usnavi’s legs, burgundy-scaled with a fin at the end.

“You’re a mermaid.” Benny says it as a statement, not a question.

“ _Merman_ , actually,” Usnavi says, sounding somewhat annoyed. “Plural, merfolk.”

Benny sits on the edge of the tub, next to Usnavi. Oddly enough, this seems like a natural progression of things with Usnavi. Rescue guy from drowning, guy turns out to be half fish. Wait—

“I was getting used to having legs for the first time,” Usnavi says, when Benny asks _but why couldn’t you swim_? He leans back into the cramped tub so he can show off his tail. “Legs are cool, but difficult to swim with.”

Usnavi has always been gorgeous, but now — more so. Benny leans in to get a better look.

Usnavi preens.

The scales start at Usnavi’s hips, a smooth transition from skin, and Benny sees that they are a gradient of burgundy, a rich purple, to a dark royal blue down at his fin, all shiny and pearlescent. There are three slits on each side of Usnavi’s torso, in line with his ribs, are what Benny realizes are gills.

“I’d hurt if I weren’t in the water,” Usnavi explains when he sees Benny staring. “I wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

“I see.”

He’s silent for a while, until Usnavi rests his chin on Benny’s knee.

“Are you mad at me?” Usnavi asks, soft. He must mistake Benny’s pensiveness for apprehension because Benny hears the plea in it, _please don’t be._

“No,” Benny says, not saying the follow-up _I love you anyway._ He runs his hand through Usnavi’s hair, soothing him. “How much of what you told me is true?”

“All of it,” Usnavi says. “Except. You know.” He flicks his fin, splashing Benny with flecks of water. “Approximations of the truth. I lived _near_ the Dominican Republic. Off the island, near a reef. That’s how I learned what I know about humans. I was fascinated by them. I wanted what they— _you_ have. So much freedom, to go.”

“That’s very _Little Mermaid_.”

Usnavi narrows his eyes, clearly not understanding the reference.

“I liked home, and it was always so _much,”_ Usnavi continues. “But then one day, it didn’t feel so big anymore. Or too big. I realized I didn’t _have_ to stay. So I left everything behind, and—” He smiles sheepishly. “I did swim here, to Manhattan. Another island.”

“Of course you did.” Benny can’t keep his hands away from Usnavi, runs his hand down his bare chest, down into the bathwater to skim next to Usnavi’s gills.

“Can I touch you?” he asks, and Usnavi nods and says, “Yes, please.”

His scales don’t feel like Benny thought they would — they’re smooth, fitted together as he runs his hand down Usnavi’s tail.   Usnavi’s eyes flutter shut and he grabs Benny’s wrist and lets out a soft moan that Benny is well-acquainted with.

“I’ve felt drawn to you since you took me from the water,” Usnavi says, “You _took_ me — don’t you know what that means?”

“No,” Benny says, but he thinks that he does know.

“You captured me,” Usnavi whispers, nuzzles against Benny’s thigh and puts his hands at the waistband of his boxers. “I’m yours.”

He looks up to Benny, questioning. Benny notices that his fingers are slightly webbed.

 _Huh_ , Benny thinks as Usnavi untucks him from his boxers, puts his clever mouth on him with an enthusiasm that splashes water over the tub. Because he knows that Usnavi has him in thrall, too.

 

 

 

“I change with the moon,” Usnavi explains the next morning, after they clean the water off the floor and Usnavi has legs again and is curled up in bed with Benny. “We are with the tide. On a full moon, our form forces itself. That’s if you’re like me, and choose to be one who walks. I have to return to the water sometimes. It’s in my blood.”

Benny holds Usnavi’s shivering body closer. He remembers the moon last night — big, bright, full.

“Or,” Usnavi continues, “it can happen when I’m really emotional, or I can do it on a whim, really—” He blushes. “Now you’ll leave me, won’t you? Now that you know? Dump me back into the river with its nasty water and—”

Benny kisses him.

“Never,” he promises.

 

 

 

Things are relatively unchanged once Benny accepts that his boyfriend is a merman. There’s an explanation for Usnavi’s weirdness. Benny would attribute Usnavi’s quirks to the fact that he’s not human, but he thinks that it’s just _Usnavi._

His bizarre, awkward, extraordinary, _perfect_ Usnavi.

Benny reassures Usnavi that nothing’s changed, because it hasn’t. Nothing could change Benny’s mind. Usnavi gets a little clingy, but that’s okay — there’s something to his body being close to his body.

They accommodate.

The next full moon, Benny says, “I want to be with you.” Usnavi raises his brow, like, _are you sure about that?_ but he doesn’t argue when Benny insists, “I don’t want you to be alone.”

Benny calls it a _date night._ Usnavi calls him a nerd, but he can’t hide his dorky smile that makes Benny’s pulse flutter.

Benny drags a beanbag chair into the bathroom to sit on while he waits. Usnavi lounges naked in the tub full of warm water, with salt that Benny had dumped in it. He is seemingly nonchalant about it, and has casual conversation with Benny, but Benny can’t focus because he’s waiting for that moment when Usnavi _changes—_

It happens gracefully. Midsentence, Usnavi stops, and there’s a hitch in his breath and he reaches out to grab Benny’s hand as he sinks into the bathwater — he exhales from his lungs and the transformation takes over. Blink-and-you-miss-it skin and legs and toes fading into scales and tail and fin. Claims him.

“You’re beautiful.” Benny strokes Usnavi’s scales, fingertips tracing the intricate pattern, and Usnavi hums and replies, “I know.”

They exchange stories to pass the time, both inquisitive of their lifestyles. Usnavi tells him merfolk legends that have been passed down for seventy generations, and he tells accounts of exploring shipwrecks. Benny regales him with stories of his prom night, and how the dispatch works because Usnavi is curious, but uneasy about radios.

(“So the waves are invisible? Everywhere?”)

They discover that they aren’t so different. They both lost a family (Usnavi’s to an unknown merfolk disease, and Benny’s just _left_ ). They both have dreams.

“But you’ve got yours,” Benny comments, and Usnavi counters with, “So what about you?”

_I’m not like you._

The ordeal must exhaust Usnavi, because he dozes off as Benny explains microwaves. Usnavi sleeps with his head leaning against Benny’s shoulder, drooling, with his fin hanging over the edge of the tub. It twitches. Benny wonders if he dreams of swimming, free.

 

 

 

The sex is good. _Really_ good _._ Usnavi is a wild thing — unreserved. Gives, and takes.

He makes good use of his legs, wraps them around Benny’s waist and holds him close, asks so prettily to be touched. Underneath him, begging, and whether or not he is compelling him, Benny doesn’t _care._

Usnavi bites the place over Benny’s rapidly-beating heart.

“Mine.”

 

 

 

Benny drives Usnavi to the beach.

During the day, they lie on the sand, lazing in the sun, eating ice cream, goofing off in the shallow part of the water—

—but at night, they go back.

Benny shines a flashlight as he watches Usnavi shift; Usnavi strips down and lies where the tide comes in, and in a few seconds his beautiful tail is there instead of legs and he gives a _whoop_ and swims off into the ocean.

He’s gone for a while, but Benny doesn’t worry — he’ll come back.

 

 

 

Usnavi does come back, bursting out the water with a graceful flip. Benny cheers, shines the light so he can see Usnavi’s happy face poking out of the water.

“Come swim with me,” Usnavi shouts, and Benny must show apprehension because he says, “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

Benny trusts him, with everything. Every thing.

In this form, Usnavi is strong — holds Benny tight around the waist as he uses his powerful tail to propel them forward towards the dark. And well, Benny is along for the ride. He wraps his arms around Usnavi, like a lifeline. He doesn’t know where they’re going. How can Usnavi see? Does he have night vision? Sonar? He’ll have to ask when he isn’t afraid that he’ll swallow seawater if he does.

When he wonders if Usnavi will take them the entire length of the ocean, they stop.

“Gotta take a break,” Usnavi says, and he sets Benny on a buoy. Lifts him up from his waist, puts him down. Benny thinks that the break is more for him, than Usnavi.

Out in the middle of the ocean, the half-moon light reflects, and he can see Usnavi. Benny kicks, splashing him — Usnavi giggles and does a backflip, dives under.

The ripples where Usnavi disappeared still; Benny holds his breath, waiting.

It’s peaceful and—

—he understands the _call_ that Usnavi speaks of.

“Hey,” Usnavi says when he surfaces, swims a circle around the buoy.

“Hey.” Benny reaches out to Usnavi, who presses his damp face against his hand. Benny curls his other hand at Usnavi’s neck, fingers brushing through Usnavi’s wet hair. “You beautiful creature.”

Usnavi’s teeth glint in the moonlight. “I’ve got something for you,” he says and then places a conch shell in Benny’s lap. Kisses Benny’s knee.

Benny picks it up and inspects it. He’s never seen a shell in such good condition. Big as his hand, spirals intact, untouched. Usnavi must have swum far down to retrieve it.

“It’s perfect, just like you,” Benny says, and Usnavi drags him down into the water to kiss, framing his face with webbed fingers, and it’s like they’re only two people alive in the world.

 

 

 

When they get back to the shore, Usnavi gets his legs back and tackles Benny, toppling both of them over, landing in the sand. They roll in the sand, it sticking to their skin, getting everywhere — they rut against each other until Usnavi straddles Benny and pulls his shorts down and says, “I love you I love you I love you.”

“I love you too,” Benny says. He always has — he would do anything for him. He is his, after all.

 

 

 

When they get home, Benny puts the shell on the dresser, next to his watch, wallet, phone, picture of his parents — other treasures.

 

 

 

Two things happen after their nighttime swim.

One: they become closer — Benny thinks that he would have to cut his heart out to separate himself from Usnavi.

Two: he feels Usnavi drifting away.

“I want this to be my home—it is, but I miss it,” Usnavi says, “my home,” and the unspoken _my real home_ is there because no matter how far away he goes he cannot separate the sea from him — it’s in his blood. It calls to him, like the wanderlust—

“Then go,” Benny suggests. He can’t bear to see Usnavi suffer — him torn, between what he is and what he wants—

“Do you want me to leave?”

_No no no stay forever or take me with you even though I cannot follow—_

“If you need to,” Benny says, wills himself not to cry. It’ll be easier that way.

And—

Usnavi’s body hitches, doubling over, hisses when Benny goes to catch him.

“’Navi!” Benny yells, kneels down on the floor next to Usnavi. Usnavi _screams_ as he convulses again, crawls on the floor, away from Benny, rips at his clothes, thrashes out of them, and then Benny understands because it’s not a full moon, it’s broad daylight—

Usnavi fights the transformation, and it’s not at all peaceful like when it’s a willing one. He cries, tries to crawl forward but his feet bind together and his bones crack— _snap_ and shape into form his tail, and scales pop out of his pristine tan skin, cuts open on his sides, and there’s blood—

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Benny cries, “I don’t want you to leave,” but Usnavi shakes his head and says, wheezes, “It’s too late, Benny, too late—”

His heart, broken.

Usnavi flops on the floor, scales scraping against the wood, and he’s crying, gasping, begging, “ _Please—I can’t—!”_

He’s drowning. On air.

Benny scoops him up, one arm against his back and one under his tail, whispers, “I’ve got you, Usnavi,” and he’s heavy but Benny rushes to get him in the tub. Usnavi wheezes, flails, and Benny _runs_ , drops Usnavi in the tub — Benny turns on the water and stops up the drain, cups water in his hands and pours it on Usnavi’s thirsty gills and finally, _finally,_ Usnavi takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling.

“Thank you,” Usnavi whispers, shaky, his eyes wet with tears. Breathes. “Thank you.”

Benny gets into the tub with Usnavi. It’s a tight fit, but he needs to be with him. Close. Skin against skin. He slides in next to Usnavi and wraps an arm around him, kisses him until his breathing calms.

“I just want you to be happy,” Benny says, runs his hand gently down Usnavi’s side, over skin and then scales.

Usnavi whines happily, curls his tail around Benny.

“I’m happy when you’re happy.”

 

 

 

Usnavi stays.

They’re both happy, because they have each other.

Usnavi does the human _thing_ — learns to like street hot dogs, watches HBO, buys lottery tickets.

“You’re wasting your money on those,” Benny says, and then he leans over Usnavi’s shoulder and amends, “You’re wasting _my_ money on those.”

Usnavi smiles, puts the ticket in his pocket, pats it.

“I’m using the lucky numbers my Abuela Claudia used to tell me,” he says. “She’s always been good luck to me.”

“Dream big, little homie,” and Benny will let him, because he’s too wonderful to contain.

 

 

 

Usnavi wins the lottery. Ninety-six thousand.

“You were right,” Benny says — Usnavi’s heart _knows._ “Mermaid magic.”

“I’ve got luck,” Usnavi says and he kisses the winning ticket, and then he grabs Benny by his tie and kisses him, pulls him down down down and Benny feels like he could drown.

 

 

 

Benny knows that Usnavi is restless, itching to go see what else there is in this world, because Manhattan is only one island. The sea is in Usnavi’s blood, the world his to explore, and Usnavi _wants_ so beautifully. Benny wants him to be free; he thinks of Usnavi swimming in moonlit ocean and diving for shells, having no boundaries.

He must be restless too, because Usnavi promises him he won’t leave. He says, “We can stay. Save the money.”

It’s then that Benny realizes that Usnavi doesn’t need a small fortune to be free — he can go when and where he pleases. Isn’t bound by those dark confines of human nature.

“It’s your winnings,” Benny says. “It doesn’t matter where we go, as long as I’m with you.”

Usnavi smiles. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Because he came across the ocean to find Benny, and that is enough.

 

 

 

With the money he doesn’t save, Usnavi puts away enough for an entrance fee for business school next Fall—

“Not because I’m indebted to you, but because you deserve your dream, too.”

—and buys Benny a car—

“Your own,” Usnavi says, “not a rickety cab.”

—and they leave, together.

They drive down the coast, following warm water. Virgina Beach, Tybee Island, Key West. They travel until they want to stop, then spend their days sleeping in beachside hotels and rutting in sheets and they spend their nights swimming in moonlit ocean, saltwater in Usnavi’s gills and Benny with him, always.

They have nowhere to be, except to be with each other.

No regrets.

 

 

 

Low tide, full moon. Somewhere; it doesn’t matter where. Usnavi lying in the shallow water with Benny floating on his back next to him — Usnavi holding onto him so he stays with him.

“Benny?”

“Yes, Usnavi?”

“I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> you find me @[acanofpeaches](http://acanofpeaches.tumblr.com) on tumblr


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